Hello from Iowa

Hello. Here is my story of how I got in to trapping a House Sparrow. One day I decided to start feeding birds. I was dreaming about a cute cardinal on my feeder. So we went up to Menard's and bought a huge bag of seed, I guess like most people I bought the cheapest stuff money can get- a huge bag that had a cardinal on it and was in a white package. It was millet. Somewhere in two months I had a huge flock of house sparrows emptying my tube feeder in an hour. I decided to put less seed in it. I end up putting the feeder away! Too many sparrows. Then I thought I should put up a bird house! I started researching the bird houses online and stumped on the Sialis website. And then I realized all along: there is no way I will see a cardinal and I have been feeding the native bird’s killers for almost all summer! I remember the website said if you cannot monitor your nest box you should not put one up. Do not let the native bird’s killers to nest in your yard!
I was upset!!!!
My first sparrow trap I made myself out the scrap wire. It worked well. I got a lot of looks from my husband; he thought that I absolutely lost it. He did not believe me that it is necessary to get rid of sparrows and that it is a huge treat to the native birds! Till he read it in the DNR book – that trapping a house sparrow is a necessary tool and that DNR does it too!. They even had a picture of a repeating trap in there. So now I have 2 traps one is bigger for starlings and one Van Ert trap for a bird house. I made a dent in their population but they still keep coming and with the people having martin houses taken over by sparrows in the neighborhood I think we will have a steady supply here. I am not giving up! I believe I make a difference with every bird that will not leave my trap alive.

Well we are glad you came here and it sounds like you're doing your best. As long as there are sparrows there will be people looking at us like we're crazy!

Keep up the good work and welcome to the forum.

I'm late in posting but would like to give you a belated Welcome from Georgia!
Sialis is a great site to learn about HOSP.